by Terri Reid
“Melvin always goes to the Senior Center on Thursday morning,” Stanley said. “He and his friends play cards until the noon meal.”
Mary looked over at the car’s clock. It was only nine-thirty. They had plenty of time. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s see what we can do.”
They walked from the car up to the apartment building, and Mary casually looked around. “It’s pretty deserted here,” she said. “Do you think his apartment is unlocked?”
“Not likely,” Stanley said.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Margo said, pulling a wrapped package from her purse. “I came prepared.” She looked around. “Meet me at the back door. I’ll let you in.”
“Are you sure?” Mary asked.
Margo nodded. “Jessica Fletcher, remember?” she teased.
Leaving Margo, they walked around to the back of the building.
As soon as they were out of sight, Margo knocked on the door next to Melvin’s apartment. An elderly man answered the door. “Can I help you?” he asked.
Margo smiled at him. “I certainly hope so,” she said. “I was supposed to meet Melvin here this morning. I’ve been knocking for several minutes, but he doesn’t answer.”
“Well, this is his Senior Center day,” the man said.
“Oh,” Margo made a sound of distress. “I’m leaving in an hour, and I wanted to give him this little gift. He bought me lunch yesterday.”
“Oh, are you the gal he was telling me about?”
She smiled. “I’m from Deadwood,” she said.
“Yes. Yes, he was telling me about you,” he said.
She looked around, feigning desperation. “Is there a manager I could speak with?” she asked. “I just want to leave this gift for him and…” She looked embarrassed. “Leave him a little note since I can’t tell him how I feel in person.”
“Well, I’ve got his key,” he said. “I can let you in.”
“Oh, are you sure?” she asked. “I really don’t want to break any rules.”
“What?” the man asked. “Melvin told me all about you. He’d be as disappointed as hell if I didn’t let you in.”
He went back into his apartment, grabbed a key hanging on a hook near the door and came outside. “Here you go,” he said, unlocking the door and pushing it open. “Just lock the door behind you when you leave.”
“Thank you,” she said, allowing her eyes to mist. “You don’t know what this means to me.”
He smiled at her. “Well, all I can say is that Melvin’s a lucky guy.”
She stepped inside. “I’ll lock up,” she said. “I promise. Thanks again.”
She closed the door behind her and walked through the cluttered apartment to the back door. “Hurry,” she whispered as she waved them in.
“How did you…” Mary started to ask.
“I’ll tell you later,” Margo said. “But we only have a little while.”
Once they were all inside, they looked around and were surprised that, despite the clutter, there was very little in the apartment.
“It looks like he’s got a twin bed and a small dresser,” Stanley said, standing outside the bedroom door. “But that’s about it.”
“He has no kitchen table,” Rosie said. “Only a TV tray and a folding chair.”
“And this is just a one-bedroom apartment,” Margo said. “So, he isn’t hiding a computer. He just doesn’t have one.”
“Does he have a car?” Mary asked.
Stanley thought about it for a moment. “No. I think he takes the Senior Bus everywhere he goes,” he said.
Looking around the apartment, Mary shook her head. “I don’t see how he could even get to the Koch’s house to tamper with their car,” she said. “And I don’t see any tools anywhere.”
“He’s destitute,” Rosie said. “That’s why he was embarrassed about people looking into his background.”
“I really think we can take him off the list,” Mary said.
Margo nodded. “And I think I’ll go back next door and leave this gift with his neighbor,” she said. “He doesn’t need to know that someone was in his apartment.”
Chapter Forty
An hour later, Mary parked her car around the corner from Butch’s house and then turned to Rosie. “Are we really sure—” she began.
“It’s the only way,” Margo inserted. “I don’t even know the couple you are trying to help, but I believe that justice needs to be served.”
Sighing, Mary turned off the car and nodded. “You’re right,” she said. “I just wish we didn’t have to break the law to do it.”
“Oh,” Rosie said with a sudden smile. “We’re not breaking the law. I forgot to tell you.”
“What?” Mary asked.
“Last night, when I left my glove there,” Rosie said, “Butch told me that I could drop by anytime. I was always welcome. So, we’re just dropping by, not breaking in.”
Mary smiled and shook her head. “I’m sure he meant when he was home,” she said.
Rosie shrugged. “Well, he didn’t say that,” she reasoned. “So, we are just dropping by. It’s perfectly legal.”
“Besides,” Margo added. “we’re old. We get confused.”
Mary turned to look at Margo in the back seat. “I’m not old,” she said.
Margo smiled. “You’re pregnant,” she said. “Same difference. The hormones do crazy things to your brain.”
Mary laughed. “Well, now that we’ve covered all the legal areas, we might as well go in.”
Rosie and Margo nodded in agreement. “Let’s go,” Margo said.
The neighborhood was quiet, all the neighbors either at work or busy inside their homes. The three women had no problem walking up onto the front porch, opening the unlocked door and letting themselves in. “See,” Rosie whispered. “We didn’t have to break or enter.”
“Well, we didn’t have to break,” Mary whispered back as they stood in Butch’s hallway. “But we certainly have entered.”
Rosie looked around. “Oh, yes, you’re right.”
“So, where do we start?” Margo asked, pulling a pair of latex gloves out of her pocket and slipping them on.
“You brought gloves?” Mary asked.
Margo dug through her purse and pulled out two more pair. “I brought extra,” she said. “Just in case they dust the place for fingerprints.”
Mary looked at both of the women. “We’re not going to kill anyone or steal anything,” she said. “So I don’t think they’re going to need to dust.”
“You never know,” Margo replied, handing a pair to Mary.
With a resigned shrug, Mary slipped the gloves on her hands and then looked around the house. “Why don’t we see if he has an office?” Mary suggested. “That might be the best place to start.”
They walked through the living room that had plates, cups and silverware scattered around it. Rosie walked over to the coffee table that had a plate with the remains of breakfast on it. She shook her head and picked up the plate. “It really doesn’t take any time at all to just pick things up and wash them off,” she said.
“What are you doing?” Margo asked.
“I’m cleaning up…” Rosie began.
“Rosie, we’re breaking and entering,” Margo reminded her. “We’re not supposed to be cleaning up.”
Rosie looked down at the plate and then back at Margo. “But it’s disgusting,” she said.
“Put the plate back,” Margo insisted.
Slowly lowering the plate to the table, Rosie sighed. “Fine.”
They walked down the hall, and Mary peeked into the kitchen. It was a mess. “Don’t even look in that direction, Rosie,” Mary said, turning her friend away from the doorway. “It will ruin your whole day.”
They moved farther down the hall to the back of the house and found a closed door. “This must be his office,” Margo said, opening the door slowly.
Sure enough, the small room held a chair and desk surrounded by tall stacks of bookcases tha
t were crammed full of everything from paperback books, to CDs, to even some old VHS tapes. Mary walked over and picked one of the tapes up.
“Stanley still has a box of those, too,” Rosie said. “He keeps saying they’re coming back.”
“Yeah, just like rotary dial phones,” Margo said. She looked around the room. “So where do we start? Checking behind the stacks of books? Rifling through the desk drawers? Tapping on the walls for hidden panels?”
“Well, we could look on his computer,” Mary suggested.
“Oh, yeah, good idea,” Margo conceded.
Mary sat down on the chair and started up the computer. The screen appeared with a request for a password. “Well, crap, we need a password,” she said in frustration.
“Oh, no problem,” Margo said.
“What do you mean?” Mary asked. “We have no idea what his…”
Mary paused when Margo reached over and pulled a sticky note from the wall next to the computer and handed it to her. “Try this,” Margo said.
Mary shook her head in disbelief. “But, he wouldn’t have his password right next to his computer,” Mary said, typing in the letters and numbers on the page anyway. She pressed the “Enter” key, and the system accepted the password and allowed her access to all the files.
“Why would he do that?” she asked incredulously.
“Because, like the rest of us, he can’t remember his password,” Margo said with a smile. “So, he keeps it right next to his computer.”
“But…but…but…,” Mary stammered.
“Don’t try to make sense of it,” Margo advised. “It is what it is.”
Still shaking her head, Mary opened up his browser to check his browsing history. “Well, isn’t this interesting?” she said.
“What is that?” Rosie asked.
“His browsing history,” Mary replied. “It tracks all of the web pages he’s visited in the past.”
“Does every computer do that?” Rosie asked.
Mary nodded and smiled. “Unless you turn off the history area,” she said.
“Why, that’s simply amazing,” Rosie said. “Who would have thought a computer could do that?”
“Anyway, it turns out that our friend Butch accessed articles on how to cut brake lines,” Mary said. “And he also accessed schematics of the kind of car the Kochs drove.”
“Let me see,” Margo said, leaning over Mary and looking at the monitor. She pulled on her reading glasses and looked even closer. “And look at that. The dates are just before the Kochs were killed.”
“I knew it,” Margo said, straightening up. “I knew he did it.”
“The question is,” Mary said, “how do we prove it?”
Chapter Forty-one
Margo shook her head. “Well, if they could convict people for what they were searching for on their computers, my daughter, Ann, would be in a maximum security prison,” she said. “Mystery writers have to look up all kinds of interesting things.”
Mary nodded. “And even if we found the tools he used to cut the brake lines,” she added, “there is no way we could prove that he used those tools for that purpose.”
Rosie shrugged. “So we have to get him to confess,” she said simply.
Margo and Mary turned and stared at their friend. “You make it sound like it’s easy,” Margo said.
“Well, it’s not easy,” Rosie agreed. “But, really, he’s not that smart, and besides, he’s messy. We should be able to figure out a way to get him to confess.”
“A séance,” Margo said.
Mary shook her head immediately. “Oh, no, I don’t do séances,” she said emphatically.
“I don’t mean a real séance,” Margo replied. “I mean a set up. So we scare Butch into confessing what he did.”
Rosie clapped her hands. “Oh, that’s a great idea,” she said. “We can have it at my house.” She paused for a moment and then looked at her friends. “What does one serve at a séance?”
“Hollow weenies?” Mary suggested.
Margo started to laugh when they heard the front door jiggle.
“Crap,” Mary whispered, her heart thumping in her chest. “They’re back.”
Rosie shook her head. “They can’t be back. We’re still here.”
“We need to hide,” Margo said. She looked around the room and then looked down at Mary. “We need a fairly large hiding place.”
“There’s a pantry, between here and the kitchen,” Rosie said. “It’s a mess, but it’s big enough.”
“Let’s go,” Mary said, shutting down the computer and pushing herself out of the chair.
They quietly let themselves out of the office, closing the door softly behind them. The could hear the thumping sound of Butch’s walker being guided into the front hall.
“Really, Butch,” they heard Stanley say from the front of the house. “It’s my treat. You don’t need your wallet.”
“No, I can’t do that to you, Stanley,” Butch replied from what sounded like the living room. “I know it’s around here somewhere.”
“Hurry,” Rosie whispered, motioning them forward as she opened a narrow door in the hallway.
They tiptoed quickly and stuffed themselves into the long, narrow pantry. “It looked bigger when it was empty,” Rosie said.
“I might have left it in the kitchen,” Butch called.
“He’ll never find it in there,” Mary whispered.
Suddenly Rosie started to silently shake. Concerned, Mary placed her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Rosie,” she whispered urgently. “Are you okay?”
Rosie turned, tears streaming down her cheeks, and she nodded as she wiped the moisture away. “I just got it,” she whispered back, her voice hitching with emotion.
“Got what?” Mary asked.
“Hollow weenies,” she said, clapping her hands over her mouth as she exploded with silent mirth.
Margo looked at Rosie, then Mary, and then turned away from both of them, her shoulders also shaking in noiseless amusement. “Stop it,” Mary whispered urgently. “Both of you. This is—”
Hiccup. Hiccup. Hiccup
Both women turned at the same time and stared at Mary. They could hear Butch’s footsteps right outside the pantry door. Mary shook her head and pointed down at her abdomen.
Hiccup. Hiccup. Hiccup.
The hiccups were internal, so they weren’t causing any noise. But because of the close proximity in the closet, both of the other women could feel them. Both women’s eyes were filled with nervous hysteria, and their bodies were shaking with laughter.
“I have to pee,” Rosie breathed softly, which caused another bout of shaking and crying.
Mary was at her wit’s end. She didn’t want to think about the image they would present if Butch opened the pantry door—three women crammed into a tiny space, laughing hysterically.
The laughter halted immediately when they felt the movement of the doorknob.
Fear replaced mirth, and the women held their breath.
“Hey, Butch,” Stanley called from the living room. “I found it.”
“That’s great,” Butch replied, releasing the doorknob. “Thanks Stanley. Let’s go eat.”
They held their breath until they heard the front door close, and then they collapsed against the shelves.
“Let’s drive to McDonalds,” Rosie said, her voice shaking.
“McDonalds?” Mary asked.
Rosie nodded. “There is no way I’m going to use that man’s bathroom,” she replied. “Disgusting.”
They giggled all the way to the car.
Chapter Forty-two
Mary climbed the steps to the second floor of the Freeport City Hall Building to Bradley’s office. She hated that she was out of breath before she reached the top stair. Pausing for a moment to catch her breath, she leaned against the wall and took a deep breath before stepping out into the hall.
Dorothy, Bradley’s administrative assistant, was behind the tall desk at the end of
the hall. She looked up when she heard Mary enter the hall.
“Hi, Mary,” she said with a smile. “Hasn’t that baby been born yet?”
Mary smiled on the outside and grimaced on the inside. If one more person asked her that again, she might scream. “Nope,” she said aloud, patting her belly. “He’s still in there.”
“Well, you look like you’re ready to burst,” she said.
Thank you, Mary thought, thank you very much.
But she smiled and shook her head. “No, not for a couple more months,” she replied. “Is Bradley free for a few minutes?”
Dorothy nodded. “Yes, go on in,” she said.
“Thanks,” Mary said, walking passed Dorothy and knocking lightly on Bradley’s door.
“Come in,” she heard him call.
She opened the door and slipped inside his office. “Hi,” she said when Bradley looked up.
His surprised smile lightened her heart, and when he stood up and came over to her, that same heart did a little flip-flop seeing him in his uniform.
“What a nice surprise,” he said, leaning down and kissing her lightly on the lips. Then he paused. “This is a surprise, right? I wasn’t supposed to meet you and I forgot?”
She grinned and shook her head. “No, this is a surprise,” she said. “Do you have a few minutes to talk?”
“For you, anything,” he said, leading her back to his desk.
He guided her to a chair and sat down next to her, rather than take his place on the other side of the desk. “So, what’s up?” he asked.
She took a deep breath and then turned to him. “Well, remember last night when you asked me if I was trying to avoid your questions?” she asked.
“Which you obviously were,” he pointed out.
She nodded affirmatively and took another deep breath.
“Any more deep breaths like that and I’m going to have to open the window to get more air in here,” he teased.
“So, yesterday, Margo and Rosie thought they found some suspects in the Koch murder case,” she explained. “Stanley didn’t think so, but Margo actually had lunch with one guy and felt like he turned really defensive when they talked about the Kochs. Then she had ice cream with another guy and thought he went kind of psycho when they were talking about Frasier.”
